In many types of production processes, the processing and assembly of product occurs in separate enclosures, rooms, or spaces. Each room may have a different and distinct environment created to assist with an aspect of the manufacturing process itself or that is tailored for the specific processing stage performed in the particular room. As the product is created or processed, it may be transported from one room to an adjacent room using, for example, a conveyor belt that moves each product item separately or a forklift, hand truck, or cart that moves an entire production lot of product. Environmental conditions within each room may be controlled separately. For example, a first processing stage may occur within a first room at a relatively higher temperature and a second processing stage occurs within a second adjacent room at a relatively lower temperature. Other environmental conditions such as humidity, airborne particulates, etc., may also be controlled. When product is moved from the first room to the second room, environmental air typically moves from the first room to the second room along with the product. In many manufacturing processes this movement of air along with the product is undesirable and may create inefficiencies that increase costs and decrease production.
For example, in the food processing industry, product such as fruit and vegetables are heated and/or cooked during processing. The heating process may include immersion of the product in hot water, which increases the temperature and humidity of the air within the room. If the product is heated without immersion in water, the heated product may release moisture, thereby increasing the temperature and humidity of the air within the room. Once a food product has been heated and/or cooked, it is often transported to a different, cooler room to be flash frozen to avoid bacterial contamination and spoilage of the product.
At many food processing facilities, food cooking and/or packaging occurs in a food processing room and flash freezing and/or cold storage occurs in a flash freezer room (freezer) located immediately adjacent to the processing room. The product may be transported directly from the processing room to the freezer using a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt transports the product in bulk form or in boxes from the processing room, through a hole or opening, and into the freezer. During transport of the processed product, warm humid air from the processing facility is transported into the freezer along with the processed product.
Once in the freezer, the warm air from the processing room cools and water vapor may condense and freeze within the freezer thereby resulting in a rapid buildup of frost within the freezer space itself. To remove the frost buildup, a processing plant may schedule equipment shutdowns to allow maintenance personnel time to manually clear the frost buildup to prevent equipment failure, which decreases production and increases labor costs. Food processing plants can also use heat trace equipment to spot heat certain locations within freezer space to prevent frost buildup, which decreases cooling efficiency of the freezer and increases costs.
To maintain temperature separation between rooms, high velocity air may be directed across an opening. The high velocity air may be prevented from flowing into a cold space using air curtains. One drawback with this technology is that when an object such as a vehicle, production personnel, or the product itself passes through the air curtain, the high velocity air can be deflected off of the object and into the room, space, or enclosure (hereinafter, collectively, “room” or “enclosure space”) that the air is meant to protect.
Additionally, strip curtains are often used by themselves in an attempt to minimize airflow from the production room into the freezer. While strip curtains alone may provide a passive method to decrease unwanted air flow from a production room into a freezer, they provide only a modest improvement in efficiency.
Thus prior technologies used to maintain thermal separation between adjacent rooms are inefficient and/or provide only a minimum improvement. Heat and/or humidity introduced within the freezer can be negated by increasing cooling, which increases demand on the cooling systems, can result in an increase in equipment failure and an increase in required maintenance, a decrease in production, and thus increases costs.
A method and structure for providing improved thermal separation, moisture separation, and/or particulate separation between adjacent rooms such as a processing room and a freezer would be desirable.